Contributor: Ken Jacobs

Ken Jacobs is the Chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center, where he as been a Labor Specialist since 2002. His areas of specialization include health care coverage, the California budget, low-wage work, the retail industry and public policy. Learn more about Ken.

The day before Thanksgiving 2013, administrators at UHS Corona Regional Medical Center in Corona, CA fired 48 Certified Nurses Aids (CNAs) and Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs) without notice. While Registered Nurses (RNs) in the facility felt CNAs and LVNs were critical members of the team, administration called them in off the floor and permanently dismissed them, leaving the RNs to do the many tasks that they had always relied on CNAs and LVNs to do, from assisting patients to the bathroom to collecting samples for testing.

(including Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Arizona, Idaho, Michigan, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming) have already enacted anti-union legislation, which proponents justified with claims that public sector unions are behind the state budget deficits.

Their central argument does not withstand scrutiny. A report I co-authored with two of my colleagues from UC Berkeley, entitled “The Wrong Target: Public Sector Unions and State Budget Deficits,” analyzes the relationship between public sector workers, their unions, and state budget deficits. We found the that budget shortfalls in states across the United States were caused by the housing bubble burst and the continuing effects of the great recession, and not public sector workers or their unions.

Walmart is well known for both its low prices and its low wages. The drive to keep prices is down is offered as explanation for the company’s substandard wages and benefits. New findings show that Walmart can keep those prices low and pay its workers a living wage.